Domenico Guglielmini was an Italian mathematician and hydrologist. He studied mathematics as well as medicine in Bologna (Europe’s oldest university) under the famous biologist Malpighi. In 1686 he was nominated “general intendant of the waters” in the Bologna area which, laying at the mouth of Italy’s greatest river, the Po, has a great number of rivers and canals and is prone to flooding. In 1690 he obtained a professorship of hydrometry founded expressly for him at the University of Bologna, and in 1698 he was called by the Venetian republic, also very concerned with water management, at the University of Padova. In 1697 he published his masterpiece, A physico-mathematical essay on the Nature of Rivers, a founding text of the Italian school of hydraulics, which dominated the science in the 17th and early 18th centuries.
The book discusses the nature of rivers and their parts, the motion of water, estuaries and confluents, riverbanks, and the kind of materials carried by rivers. There are 15 illustrations; the one given here represents the Lock at Casalecchio, which has controlled the Reno river bringing water to Bologna for a thousand year and has been recently recognized by Unesco as the oldest hydraulic work in continuous operation in Europe. The lock is monumental: 160.45 metres long, 35.45 metres wide (in average) and 8.25 metres high. Part of water of the Reno river is diverted through an inlet called “Il Boccaccio” placed on the right side of the river into the artificial Reno Canal.
ACB represent the Reno river, G the start of the Boccaccio inlet, F and K two paraporti (controlled, or gated spillway) to protect the flow of the water against ice and snow during the winter, and H and I are open spillways.
Sources- Wikipedia
- http://www.bolognawelcome.com/en/places-to-see/history-art/params/CategorieLuoghi_46/Luoghi_324/ref/Chiusa%20di%20Casalecchio%20di%20Reno
- http://www.rivistasitiunesco.it/articolo.php?id_articolo=498
- http://www.iatcollibolognesi.it/iatcollibolognesi/archeologia-industriale/381-chiusa-casalecchio-paraporto-scaletta-filanda-bastia-badia.html
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spillway